SWAN CRAIG

Group 138 (1)

01179 200 128

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Group 139

legal@swancraig.co.uk

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Group 139
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Bristol Solicitors,
Providing Legal Advice You Can Trust

We appreciate when taking any advice you need more than just the law. As specialist employment and commercial solicitors, unlike other law firms, we not only advise on the legalities, but we also provide practical advice to help you understand the whole picture and what options are available to you, including the risks and likely costs associated with them. We have 18 years of experience in providing employment and commercial legal advice across a wide range of matters. We pride ourselves on providing professional legal services at a competitive rate.

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01179200128
We not only advise on the legalities but we also provide practical advice to help you understand the whole picture and what options are available to you.

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    Take a helpful hand!

    We have 18 years of experience providing legal employment and commercial law advice for various matters and industries.

    MAIN OFFICE

    St Brandon’s House, 29 Great George Street, Bristol, BS1 5QT

    MEETINGS ALSO AVAILABLE AT

    Trym Lodge, 1 Henbury Road, Bristol, BS9 3HQ

    E-MAIL

    legal@swancraig.co.uk

    VIDEO APPOINTMENT

    We hold online appointments booked via email or by calling us

    TELEPHONE

    01179 200128

    WORKING HOURS

    Mon-Thur: 9am – 5:30pm, Fri: 9am - 5pm

    Frequently Asked Questions

    There are some questions that get asked time and time again by employers and businesses. when considering to use solicitors. That’s where our employment law and commercial law FAQs come in to assist you.

    If you find that you’re still searching for an answer, we are ready and waiting to hear from you.  Please either check out our employment law and commercial law services, or contacting us directly by either telephone, email or our contact form.

    Sometimes you’re after a quick answer rather than spending hours researching the question yourself. By using a solicitor, you have access to the equivalent on an in-house legal department who can advise you on all areas of employment law (and commercial law). Furthermore, you are going directly to the people you need. There are a number of HR and legal support services out there who are not legally qualified, but provide ‘legal’ advice. Even they end up coming to us to check what they are advising is correct. You can pass the middle person and instruct us directly. Importantly to protect your business, by using a solicitor, you benefit from Legal Professional Privilege (LPP) on all correspondence and communication between you and your professional. LPP only applies to advice from legally qualified lawyers (i.e. solicitors and barristers) and means the advice we give you is not disclosable to an employee or in legal proceedings. You are using an expert in the law who has spent years of training and has years of experience of putting it into practice (and standing before judges to know how the courts and tribunals apply the law in practice).

    We provide a range of services to suit your budget, ranging from hourly rates (at £225 p/h plus VAT) to fixed fee or retainer services. Our retainer services price varies subject to the size of the business/number of employees. We also offer discounts on referral services for our retainer. Our retainer services include telephone and email advice, newsletters with updates in the law, discounts on fees, contract/handbook reviews*, settlement agreement assistance* and in-house seminars* to name some of the benefits (* subject to retainer package taken). Please see our Annual Membership for more information or Contact us for further details.

    We expect whatever it is you have visited our webpage for, we can assist with if it covers employment law or commercial law (such as contracts, shareholders agreements, directors queries, terms of service) matters. With our employment law services, in a nutshell, if you require HR services, we can accommodate it. This ranges from day to day employment matters such as disciplinaries, grievances, and sickness absence to more complex issues such as TUPE transfers, data protection and redundancies. We also cover a range of commercial and corporate services from reviewing terms of business to debt chasing and collection services and advising on Director and Partnership matters. Plus if you do not see it listed, contact us as it is likely we can accommodate you; there is only so much that can be written on a webpage.

    Settlement agreements (which used to be called Compromise Agreements) can be offered by either the employer, or the employee can ask for one.  It is a contract which usually gives a financial package in exchange for the employee to leave their employment and not pursue any grievance, subject access request, or claim against their employer.  When being given a settlement agreement (the actual full terms), employees should be given 10 calendar days to make their decision on it (accept it, reject it or start to negotiate on the terms).
    Employees who have two or more consecutive years’ service with their employer should not be dismissed without a fair reason, and a fair procedure being followed.  The main categories to show a fair reason for dismissal are conduct, performance, capability, redundancy, business reorganisation or some other substantial reason.  However, just because an employer has a fair reason, they still need to go through a procedure, such as a disciplinary hearing, performance management process.  Employees with less than two years’ service can risk being dismissed without a fair reason or fair procedure.  Unless the reason for dismissal is an automatic one, they will not be able to claim for ordinary unfair dismissal.  Discrimination may or may not come into play so contact us to discuss further.
    If you want assistance with a letter to send to your employer drafted from you, or to be sent by us, we can provide this service for a fixed fee from £250 plus VAT; this usually involves a couple of hours work.  This includes us reporting on the outcome and next steps. For example, you have a grievance and want to make a complaint, we would draft the letter and following receipt of the grievance outcome, we would advise on its contents and your next steps; in this example, the next steps would usually be to lodge an appeal.  We can provide this ongoing service for a further fixed fee for the next stage letter but given the next steps could then result in multiple letters/correspondence, it may be worthwhile considering instructing us using our other fee options instead.
    If you have taken the step to ask for legal advice, chances are your employer has done something wrong.  Whilst we don’t provide free advice, we can hold a quick five-minute discussion to ascertain if there is merit to your concern.  We do not provide legal advice at this stage.  For that, we offer a fixed fee service to discuss your matter and provide you with advice on your legal position and various options for next steps.  Please see our initial advice fee options.
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